Social search

I knew something like this was going to happen. The next wave of searching is not just personalized search but using a community to help you in your searching. Eurekster was kind of the first to do that where you would send an e-mail out to others and they would create a Eurekster account. Based on what they search, that is recorded as history. When you search, if your search is similar to what other people in your social network is searching for, then results are filtered to return also the results of your friends' search. Now, Yahoo is doing a social search called My Web 2.0. More information about social search from the Smart Mobs web site based on the book Smart Mobs by Howard Rheingold. It's a good book by the way, if you get a chance to read it, talks about pervasive computing, wearable computing and the social aspects of computing.

Technorati tags: search, smart mobs, social network

Microsoft's Ballmer vows to catch up to Google

This is an interesting post I read, about how Microsoft will beat Google in its tracks, and will catch up to them in 6 months. That's just funny, because it seems every week or almost every day, Google has some news of additional applications they've added. Like for example this week, they announced about their new Google Video Viewer which was just hacked by DVD Jon who also hacked DVD decryption in Linux so DVDs could be played in PCs, sharing of their Google Maps, personalized search, and local search with 3D aerial views. If this keeps up, how can Microsoft beat Google?

Although Ballmer says that Microsoft has something in the works that will allow to search through all applications. Well, interesting times ahead for sure. Microsoft's been able to unseat the #1 players, like how Microsoft IE beat Netscape, Microsoft Windows beat Novell NetWare, Microsoft Word beating WordPerfect and Microsoft Excel beating Lotus 1-2-3. But can Microsoft beat Google, I don't know. Here's an article about the war between Google and Microsoft from Technology Review.

Any comments on this, can Microsoft really beat Google at its own game?

PalmOne updates to LifeDrive and Tungsten T5

Rumors have it that PalmOne has an update to the LifeDrive and Tungsten T5. That's pretty quick especially for the LifeDrive which has come out only a couple of months ago. They say maybe the fall, the reason for this is because Hitachi has a 6GB drive available that PalmOne will put in its next LifeDrive version. Hitachi also plans to have an 8-10 GB hard drive, nicknamed “Mikey”, that is 20 percent smaller than the current one-inch models later this year. This probably means that PalmOne may release an interim LifeDrive update before whetting our appetites for the next one after that with 10GB!

The update to the Tungsten T5 (which they've codenamed XX), is supposed to finally feature Wi-Fi as well as Bluetooth, but be slower (312MHz instead of 416MHz) to save on battery life. It will not be running PalmOS Cobalt but Garnet (PalmOS 5.4.9). According to PDAStreet news, they say that PalmOne probably won't be releasing a Palm with Cobalt but go straight to a Palm OS Linux. Interesting times for the PalmOne company. Oh yeah, the company is not called PalmOne anymore, it's back to Palm. I never did like the name PalmOne, as opposed to what PalmTwo?

What I would like is a Palm with an iPod-like music MP3 player, phone, Bluetooth and WiFi and camera. And it slices, dices and juliennes, haha.

Detecting early signs of Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease is associated with the sticky plaques that build up in the brains of patients, which eventually deteriorates their brain and cognitive abilities. So, the key to detecting if someone has the early signs of Alzheimer's disease is to find out if they have any sticky plaques. A new method uses near-infrared imaging that is significantly cheaper than the leading method, and is less intrusive as well.

Apparently how it works is that they use a chemical dye and with near-infrared imaging, they are able to detect the quanitity of the sticky plaques if there is a stronger signal. Why is this discovery significant? From the Technology Review article, this sums up:

Usually, researchers studying Alzheimer's must dissect animal brains to see the effects of treatments. But monitoring a living brain over time would yield much more useful information and might even help in early diagnosis. Because Hintersteiner's and Higuchi's imaging techniques cost as little as a fiftieth as much as PET, and because the chemicals are easier to work with, live experiments once considered out of reach can now be performed on animals--and, with the MRI technique, potentially even people.

This is a great discovery, because there is lots of pain and suffering for both the Alzheimer's patient and his/her immediate family. Early detection will lead to adequate therapies and medications to address the Alzheimer's patient.

JavaOne conference starts today

Sun's annual JavaOne conference, a conference to showcase Java technology, started today.

Wimbledon and technology

I came across reading this article that talks about two of my favorite interests, technology and tennis. It explains how technology is so sophisticated and everything is so running wireless, that people from around the world can go to wimbledon.org and get instaneous updates and detailed statistics on the matches going on. The broadcasters are using them as well during their broadcast, so that's how they know so much about the statistics of the game back in their broadcast booths. Even the players and coaches are using them to analyze the game, and figure out what went good and what didn't.

The technology is even used like for example the ShotTracker or Hawkeye to replay shots and determine if the linesmen and umpire called the shot properly, when the players dispute the call. Definitely a great resource to have, now mind you, the umpires have said that the technology will be used as backup and won't replace them (yet).

Because of this technology and it's on the Internet, anyone can really become a commentator, in fact, I am in a sense a commentator when I talk about the results and my views after each day of Wimbledon (they are available on my personal blog).

I know that when there is the US Open or the Canadian Open, I subscribe to SMS where I can get scores of the match results by final, and by the end of each set. So, I am always up to date with the scores even if I am not at the computer or in front of the TV. Pervasive tennis! Hmm, maybe I can do some research on pervasive computing in tennis!

Future Windows will include RSS Support

I just read this today about the next version of Windows to include RSS support. Microsoft wants to popularize RSS, which only apparently 6% of users are using as RSS readers. I use RSS, in fact, I use Yahoo to subscribe to RSS feeds and I like it, it keeps me on top of the news and blogs that are of interest to me. It's an aggregation portal of blogs and news.

Gadgets: Bluetooth iPod wireless headphones!

Oh, this is cool, Bluetooth wireless headphones for your iPod from Logitech! Now, you're wondering Apple doesn't have an iPod that is Bluetooth enabled. Ah, but Logitech has a Bluetooth transmitter that attaches to the iPod to make it Bluetooth enabled. It seems from CNet review, that it's pretty good, there's a battery life of about 8-9 hours and only weighs only 3.2 ounces.

Now, I wonder if this can work with any Bluetooth-enabled MP3 player or it only works for the iPod. Since it's Bluetooth and if it uses the Bluetooth headset profile, then I think it should work fine. Hey perhaps, I could use it with a Bluetooth-enabled MP3 phone like for example the Motorola Razr V3 (which looks really nice).

I could definitely use a Bluetooth wireless headphones if I have a Bluetooth MP3 player and if I even had a Bluetooth MP3 cell phone then I could be listening to music and then if a call came through, I don't have to stop the MP3 player and switch to my cell phone. The cell phone would automatically pause the MP3 song, and then let me answer the call.

Keeping up with writing blogs

I was just thinking about how some people are able to keep up with writing a blog entry every single day, how some people post regularly and others post maybe once in a while. I find that sometimes I feel obligated to write on the blog every day, but sometimes I am so busy I won't have time to write.

But writing takes time, and sometimes you can't always keep writing on blogs, then you won't have time to work on your research.

So, in a sense, blogging can be seen as a disruptive activity, you blog about something, perhaps during your downtime, if you're bored, or taking a break. Then, afterwards, you resume your normal activities of research or work or whatever.

How do bloggers handle this? How much time do you usually spend on blogging, and do you make this a regular activity, just like reading and writing e-mail or instant messaging?

Media coverage from Mobisys 2005

Apparently, I had a colleague of mine who came back from Mobisys 2005 which I was at last year, and in its 3rd year, it generated a lot of media.

Research: Blogging about blogs

Here's something I found which I blogged on my research group's blog about a blogging bibliography.

Searching on the mobile web

Well, it was going to be done sooner or later, Google now has an application for searching on the web using a cell phone. It's called Google Mobile Web Search. You can't browse for content on a cell phone or mobile device the same that you do on a desktop browser. So searching on a mobile phone on the web needs to be simpler and faster than on the desktop browser. Google is the search king!

Converged devices or separate devices?

Just read this blog about converged devices from Technology Review.

Personally, I have always felt that there will always be a need for two different types of devices: the all-in-one integrated swiss army knife of device and one that just does what one particular function. There are those people who do not like to carry so many devices or carry a Bat belt as it is (which I sometimes do at times!) so they like to have one converged device. However, there are others like myself who like separate devices, a device that works exactly for one particular purpose. With converged devices, the problem is that you can't possibly get the best of everything. A smartphone is not the best for listening or downloading MP3s, an iPod-type of device would be better. Another thing is that, having separate devices gives users choice, I can choose what MP3 player I want, what phone I want etc. A third thing is that I don't have to worry if my MP3 player breaks down, I can get it replaced or get a new one. If something goes wrong with my converged device (especially hardware), then I can't use it.

In short, there will always be two camps of devices, and this will make the device manufacturers with much room to play with! So I don't think that one is better than another, it depends on the purpose and the person. Technology catered towards the person and the environment, that is pervasive computing!

Who said there are not jobs in Computer Science?

Even though it's difficult as a Computer Science student who's graduated from Bachelors or Masters to find a job these days, I found this article interesting. They say there was a sharp hiring in Computer Science in the U.S. in the first quarter. Is that really true?
The report also says that there was a decline in computer hardware engineering jobs, software engineers, electrical and electronics engineers, computer programmers, and computer and information systems managers.

I know lots of my classmates in Canada can't find jobs after their Computer Science degree, and the enrollment in Computer Science is declining. I wonder what the statistics are in Canada for the first quarter.

Paying parking meters with your cell phone

I just read this article about how you can pay for parking meters using your cell phone. It's based from a Toronto company called PayMint. You just call the number on your cell phone, and enter your credit card, e-mail, license plate and telephone number. I was parking one time in downtown Toronto and saw that, and being the GadgetMan that I am, I wanted to try that, I thought that was pretty neat. However, I found out the drawbacks of technology, it didn't work! I called the number and I couldn't pay for the parking. So I called the technical support number and they said they were having problems with that service, so I couldn't pay by my cell phone.

Just thought to myself, I wasted almost 2 minutes and I couldn't pay, compared to I could have taken less than a minute to pay by coins and be out of there. I am not trying to be a skeptic, mind you, I love technology. It just makes me think how technology still isn't 100% reliable, there has to be a manual method as a backup.

Ubiquitous Computing has arrived in Japan

Mark Weiser had a vision. That computers would be made invisible and permeated in our environment, so that computers would serve us and adapt towards our life and make our lives easier. He called this ubiquitous computing. It was a tall order, but many in the academia and industry are working to achieve his vision including myself.

However, many of the things that Weiser envisioned have not come true yet and still remains a vision. People think of ubiquitous computing as this "Star Trek" world or a future like the movie Minority Report. In the early '80s, Japan had the TRON initiative, an open computing and communications intiative. Now, that has evolved into T-Engine and this article from IEEE Pervasive Computing shows that T-Engine is ready as a ubicomp technology for prime time, for practical use.

Japan has always been the leader and advocate for advanced technology, you can witness this with their R&D labs with innovations by Sony, NTT DoCoMo and others. When will ubiquitous computing truly arrive here in Canada and the US? What are some issues that remain to be solved before the vision of ubiquitous computing becomes a reality?

Academy Award winning short animated film Ryan

I just saw the Academy Award winning short animated film called Ryan, directed by Chris Landreth. There were technical contributions from DGP at the University of Toronto and Seneca College.

The animation is amazing, a lot of the work was done by the DGP group especially graduate students. There were apparently many research projects and theses that came out of this. It took a total of 3 years to make. I wish I was in DGP, but my graphics and animation are not my specialty, so I'll stick with pervasive computing.

By the way, why is it that nobody seems to put comments in my blog? I don't have anything interesting to say? Just curious.

Rode a free Segway today!

Everybody's probably heard about the human transporter vehicle that was code-named Ginger or IT that was going to revolutionize human transportation. It's called the Segway, and it was invented by famous inventor Dean Kamen who also invented a vehicle to assist the disabled in maneuvering stairs inside the home, among his more than 150 U.S. and foreign patents.

Now, Segway is available in Ontario as I witnessed today at U of T. There was a free Segway demo and ride at lunch today, which me and my labmates went to. I've always wanted to ride a Segway so today was my chance!

The Segway works with your body's centre of gravity. If you lean forward on the Segway, then you move forward. If you lean more forward, then you go faster forward. If you lean a little back, then you go backwards. You reverse your direction of leaning if you want to stop (so if you're going forward, to stop, you then pull back). So how do you turn? Easy, on the left handlebar is a dial. You just turn this dial up to turn left, and turn the dial down to turn right.

At first, I was questioning the stability of the Segway. But when I got on it, it was extremely stable. For the technical people, it has gyroscopes that assist in the stability. You can read here to know how it works. And it feels very natural and extremely well engineered and designed. There are Segways in many parts of the world and many enthusiasts as seen on their Segway chats. There are some companies that use Segways to help their employees maneuver around in factories. Segways can be used for security, for the disabled and physically challenged.

The Segway that was used at U of T was the I-180 model which is the 8th generation from what the Segway authorized dealer representative told me. There are other models, apparently there is one for golf and one where you can use for grocery shopping and carrying bags. But it's still extremely pricey (the cheapest is $5195.00 Canadian), but much lower than when they first came out.

Here are some pictures of me on the Segway, it was fun. Will I buy one? No, of course not. But it was nice to try and now I can truly say, I've riden a Segway since I am the Gadget Man!!!! Note: All these were taken with my Palm Zire 71 camera, so I apologize if the photos are not that great (but it seems good to me).

The first guinea pig to try the Segway was the U of T parking constable


Here's the second guy who tried the Segway


My labmate, Ben, on the Segway




Now, it's Sina's turn on the Segway



Now, it's my turn!


Hmm, now I am getting the hang of the Segway, it's pretty cool!


A picture of the wheels of the Segway


Alvin scooting down the road on the Segway


Alvin turning the pylons on the Segway


Alvin close up turning on the Segway


Iqbal's turn on the Segway



Now, it's Wei's turn on the Segway



Jing's next




Finally, Jim was the last!

Getting online magazines on your cell phone

Here's an article about getting links to online magazines on your cell phone. I read lots of magazines, most in print and some online. I've subscribed to the digital version of MIT's Technology Review. Even though the digital reader used to read the magazine called Zinio Reader mimics the turning of pages like a real magazine and allows to zoom in on the pages, I still like the feel and look of the print magazine. In fact, since I take the train into school almost every day, I like to take the downtime to read rather than look at a laptop screen or on the computer in my lab.

Any of you have tried reading digital magazines either on your computer screen or handheld device or cell phone? Do you like it, or do you still prefer the print version?

PalmOne LifeDrive demo at Best Buy June 11

PalmOne will have a demo of LifeDrive at Best Buy locations in Canada tomorrow June 11 from 1-4 pm. So, if you're in the area, you can test drive the LifeDrive and even buy one!

Here's the full blurb:

With a device this small, yet powerful, you're not just upgrading your handheld -- you're mobilizing your desktop. Come to Demo Days at Best Buy to see how the LifeDrive™ mobile manager lets you take whatever you want, wherever you go. Buy yours at one of the demo events listed below and you'll also receive a FREE Mobile Entertainment CD featuring over $180 worth of software* including Pocket DVD Studio Lite, Pocket Tunes Deluxe, Resco Photo Viewer, Splash Blog and more!

Best Buy Locations:

• 945 Sunridge, Calgary, AB
• Unit 300 8180 11 street SE, Calgary, AB
• 17539 Stoney Plain Rd. N.W., Edmonton, AB
• 9931 - 19th Ave. N.W., Edmonton, AB
• 13924-137 Ave. NW, Edmonton, AB
• 800-5001 19th Street, Red Deer, AB
• 1135 PintreeWay, Coquitlam, BC
• 20202 66th Ave., Langley, BC
• 805 Boyd Street Buliding E, New Westminster, BC
• A-810 St. James Street, Winnipeg, MB
• 10-1580 Regent Ave. West, Winnipeg, MB
• 20 Kingston Road West, Ajax, ON
• 25 Peel Centre Drive, Brampton, ON
• 1200 Brant Street, Burlington, ON
• 18151 Younge Street, East Gwillimbury, ON

• 147 Laird Drive, East York, ON
• 165 North Queen Street, Etobicoke, ON
• 215 Fairway Road South, Kitchener, ON
• 1080 Wellington Road, London, ON
• 5000 HWY #7, Box D, Markham, ON
• 6075 Mavis Road, Mississauga, ON
• 1701 Merivale Road, Nepean, ON
• 695 Wilson Avenue, North York, ON
• 2500 Winston Park Drive, Oakville, ON
• 380 Converntry Rd., Ottawa, ON
• 480 Progress Ave., Scarborough, ON
• 420 Vansickle Rd., St. Catharines, ON
• 7850 Weston Road, Vaughan, ON
• 1641 Victoria Street E, Whitby, ON
• 4379 Walker Road, Windsor, ON
• 2125 Prince of Wales Drive, Regina, SK

WiMax to come this year

Just read this story about Intel and Nokia making the push for WiMax. WiMax is basically a long-haul long distance version of 802.11 WiFi that's been so popular in neighbourhoods and hotspots. The idea is to install WiMax towers and then mobile phones could access data in high-speed, much faster and more bandwidth than 3G cellular technologies.

It's interesting to note that carriers think that WiMax was a competitor to their 3G cellular infrastructure. However, now that Nokia is on board, it looks like there is increased acceptance that WiMax is not a competitor, but complementary technology. Sounds to me like the whole Bluetooth vs. WiFi debate, that Bluetooth would be killed by WiFi. But Bluetooth remains strong and you now seem them as standard in cell phones, PDAs and now luxury cars.

Tinkering with Google Maps

Here's an example of how you can tinker with Google Maps to make something useful. Some example applications include tracking cheap gas and mapping it on Google maps and tracking crime.

However, none of these people or the companies that have created this got permission from Google to hack into the Google Maps. They all did this for bringing something back to the community and to tinker around with Google Maps.

You can make interesting location-based applications around Google Maps and do geo-tracking or geoblogging.

UPS Goes Bluetooth

So people say Bluetooth is dead. There's still lots of people using Bluetooth and Bluetooth fits nicely with specific applications that require low power and low range. UPS is using Bluetooth for scanning parcels. You might ask the question, why not use RFID? According to Robert Nonneman, a manager of industrial engineering at UPS, says the company has watched RFID for 15 years but doesn't see it as an imminent solution to the problem of parcel tracking. In test runs, he says, RFID tags did not surpass the accuracy rate of bar code scanners. And an RFID rollout--including tags and a new technological infrastructure--would be costly. "You can't simply replace optical scanners with an RFID reader and expect an improved return on investment," he says. "There have to be process changes to leverage the technology."

Well it looks like Brown has become Blue, hehe, get it?

Day 3 of Mobisys 2005

It's a short day for Mobisys, this is the last day, so it's only a morning session. There's only just 2 sessions, one on Location (there) and More Power to You. What's interesting is the Accuracy Characterization for Metropolitan-scale Wi-Fi Localization from Intel Research which is their PlaceLab project. They basically determine location based on gathering traces of signal strength using Wi-Fi and then using Bayesian algorithms for inference on topological maps. In this way, they just use commodity Wi-Fi cards to measure the signal strength. They don't obtain the fine granularity that you would get with GPS systems, but for certain applications, there is no need for such fine granularity, just knowing what room you are in, not the coordinates is quite enough.

Day 2 of Mobisys 2005

Today, there's a plenary session by Alfred Spector on Staying Off the Hot Seat with Cool Mobile Systems. He talks about the security and trust that needs to be in place for mobile systems which is true. As I mentioned yesterday about the research about cracking the Bluetooth PIN, users need to have assurance their data and information is not compromised. The slides for his talk are here.

Some interesting presentations are A Relative Positioning System for Co-located Mobile Devices which have to deal with getting position based on nearby mobile devices and not from a central device like a GPS system. And oh man, there's a dinner cruise with a three-course meal and view of Seattle and sponsored by Microsoft Research! Oh, I wish I was there!

New Scientist Breaking News - New hack cracks 'secure' Bluetooth devices

Researchers from Tel Aviv University (Wool and Shaked) have found a way to crack the security of Bluetooth devices. But pairing only occurs the first time two devices communicate. Wool and Shaked have managed to force pairing by pretending to be one of the two devices and sending a message to the other claiming to have forgotten the link key. This prompts the other device to discard the link key and the two then begin a new pairing session, which the hacker can then use.

I wonder what the Bluetooth SIG will do now that pairing can be compromised. Perhaps, maybe create a security standard for Bluetooth just like there is one for 802.11.

This just shows you that there is somehow always a way to crack the security, it just takes a matter of time.

Mobisys Conference starts today

Mobisys is a conference targetted towards mobile computing applications and systems in the pervasive and mobile environment. It's sponsored by ACM Sigmobile. The schedule for the conference is here. Rick Rashid from Microsoft Research is giving a keynote on "Bridging the Quality of Life Gap through Ubiquitous Connectivity and Services". What he says in this keynote is true, there is this huge gap in the quality of life due to the access to information and services. Lots of people in the world still do not have decent Internet access. The Internet is still not as ubiquitous as we think that it is.

"A Systems Architecture for Ubiquitous Video" seems to be an interesting topic. So also is "Cracking the Bluetooth PIN", that's the PIN number that Bluetooth devices have for security. So if you want to connect to a Bluetooth device, you need to enter the PIN number if that Bluetooth device has security enabled. There's also a list of posters here. Some interesting poster topics are "The inHand System for Ubiquitous Personalized Interactive Content", "Robot Couriers: Implementing Mobility in a Mobile Wireless Testbed" (David Johnson is the one who created DSR routing). The one I am really interested in related to my research is "Profile Blog: Blog-based Life Log Viewer Capable of Profile Associations" by Masaru Honjo, Daisuke Morikawa, Akira Yamaguchi, and Masayoshi Ohashi, KDDI Corporation, Japan.

Apparently, there is a U of T submission for the poster which is "L-ToPSS: Constraint Processing System for Supporting Efficient Location-based Services" by Zhengdao Xu and Hans-Arno Jacobsen. I had a poster last year at Mobisys 2004 of which I went to in Boston.

There's a demo at the poster and demo session tonight called "SoulPad: Make Any PC Your PC", this seems related to ISR (Internet Suspend/Resume) kind of. Another interesting demo is "A Relative Positioning System for Co-located Mobile Devices", of how you can use peer devices near you to determine where you are located, instead of having to rely on centralized location systems like GPS. "A System to Investigate the Use of Digital Image Capture and Object Recognition in Mobile Tour Guides" also seems very interesting and relevant for people who go to a new place and need to have a tour. A really cool demo that I would love to see and has many uses is "MStream: Position-aware Mobile Music Streaming", which it looks like that depending on where you are, you will get music streamed to you that is tailored to your location. For example, if you are near the Mamma Mia performance, then you'll get Mamma Mia music streamed to you. Location-aware systems are hot in research right now, because they have direct applicability to consumers. And this will increase revenues for the carriers because then they'll get money for using this service provided by the carrier through the cell phone.

IE7 to run only in Windows XP SP2

Apparently, Microsoft's new IE7 which is supposed to finally catch up to Mozilla Firefox with tabbed browsing and improved security and pop-up ad blockers will only run on Windows XP. There will be no backward support for Windows 2000. This was what was said on the Microsoft blog.

For those with Windows 2000, you have to upgrade to Windows XP. This is yet another tactic by Microsoft to have to force users to upgrade. IE7 apparently ties a lot with Windows XP SP2. According to Microsoft, they can't do backward compatibility with Windows 2000 because it would require too much work because the model is different. I thought IE was supposed to NOT depend on Windows, wasn't this the argument behind the Microsoft anti-trust lawsuit? Apparently, Microsoft doesn't listen. Can't IE function as a separate application like Mozilla Firefox? This will cause many users to switch to Firefox (good!). People are not going to upgrade to Windows XP SP2 because of IE7, in fact, Windows 2000 SP4 works great and is pretty much rock solid (I used to have Windows 2000 SP4 on my laptop before I switched to XP). In fact, my wireless worked better with Windows 2000 than with XP. My wireless didn't work at all with XP, until SP2 fixed the problem. Apparently, XP SP2 fixes some stuff with the wireless wizard so it works fine for me now.

Some IE-specific sites mind you don't run well in Firefox, unless you get some kind of IE plugin for Firefox which I've heard about. But you can download Netscape 7 browser which will have both the IE rendering engine and Mozilla Gecko for Firefox.

French Open finals

Mary Pierce lost the final against Justine Henin-Hardenne with a beating of 6-1, 6-1. Pierce couldn't handle Henin-Hardenne, she was just too good for her. But having Pierce to come this far, especially knocking off #1 Lindsay Davenport, that's a great accomplishment. For the men's, Rafael Nadal became the fourth youngest male to win the French Open beating Mariano Puerta 6-7 (6), 6-3, 6-1, 7-5 to win his first Grand Slam title. Nadal moves up to #3 in the rankings, just behind #1 Federer and #2 Andy Roddick. Nadal is playing amazing tennis, especially how he beat Federer. Mariano Puerta was playing great too, but he couldn't keep up with Nadal.

French Open women's final

It's confirmed, it's a Mary Pierce and Justine Henin-Hardenne final at the French OPen for women's tennis. Pierce demolished Elena Likhovtseva 6-1, 6-1 while Henin-Hardenne defeated Nadia Petrova 6-2, 6-3. I hope that Mary Pierce wins, she deserves it in her home country, and no one thought at her age she would be able to come this far.

Blogging in Asia

Here's an article from ebiquity about blogging in Asia, apparently it's now beginning to take notice.

French Open update

It's going to be a Mary Pierce and Elena Likhotseva semifinal with the other one being Justine Henin-Hardenne and Nadia Petrova, and it's a battle of the elders since they're all over 30. Apparently, they say it's the first semi-final for this age since Martina Navratilova and Gigi Fernandez.

French Open update

Well, it looks like Roger Federer will be playing Rafael Nadal in the semi-finals. Nadal is playing amazing tennis, he's ranked #5. On the women's side, top seed Lindsay Davenport got crushed by France's Mary Pierce, while No. 2 Maria Sharapova got beaten by Justine Henin-Hardenne.

So I guess my prediction for the women's final was wrong. I thought it would be Lindsay Davenport against Maria Sharapova. For the men's, I still think it will be Federer and Safin in the finals.